An always incomplete list of suggested readings on ethnography. To suggest additions, please provide in the comments section below, and we will incorporate them into the list.

On the Ethnographic Method & Theory

Adjepong, Anima. 2017. “Invading Ethnography: A Queer of Color Reflexive Practice.” Ethnography.

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. 1992. An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Burawoy, Michael. 1998. ‘The extended case method.” Sociological Theory 16(1):4-33.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1986. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought.” Social Problems 33:14-32.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. “On Race, Gender, and Science: Black Women as Objects and
Agents of Sociological Knowledge,” pp. 95-123 in Fighting Words: Black Women and the
Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Compton, D’Lane, Tey Meadow, and Kristen Schilt (Eds.). 2018. Other, Please Specify: Queer Methods in Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Davis, Dána-Ain, and Christa Craven. 2016. Feminist Ethnography: Thinking through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

Desmond, Matthew. 2014. “Relational Ethnography.” Theory and Society 43:547-579.

Esterberg, Kristin. Qualitative Methods in Social Research. Boston: McGraw.

González-López, Gloria. 2010. “Ethnographic Lessons: Researching Incest in Mexican Families.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 39(5):569–81.

González-López, Gloria. 2011. “Mindful Ethics: Comments on Informant-Centered Practices in Sociological Research.” Qualitative Sociology 23:447-461.

Hanson, Rebecca and Patricia Richards. 2017. “Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge.” Sociological Forum 32(3):587-609.

Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14(3):575-599.

Katz, Jack. 1997. “Ethnography’s warrants.” Sociological Methods & Research 25(4):391-423.

Katz, Jack. 2001. ‘From How to Why: On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (Part I).’ Ethnography 2(4):443-473.

Katz, Jack. 2002. ‘From How to Why: On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (Part 2).’ Ethnography 3(1):63-90.

Kleinman, Sherryl, and Martha Copp. “Emotions and Fieldwork.” Qualitative Research Methods 28.

Luker, Kristin. 2008. Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut. Harvard University Press.

McCorkel, Jill, and Kristen Myers. 2003. “What Difference does Difference Make?: Position and Privilege in the Field.” Qualitative Sociology 26(2):199-231.

Mohanty, Chandra. 1984. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. Durham: Duke University Press.

Naples, Nancy. 2003. Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist
Research. New York: Routledge.

O’Shaughnessy, Sara and Naomi Krogman. 2012. “A Revolution Reconsidered? Examining the Practice of Qualitative Research in Feminist Scholarship.” Signs (37)12: 493-520.

Pugh, Allison J. 2013. “What Good Are Interviews for Thinking About Culture? Demystifying Interpretive Analysis.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 1(1):42-68.

Schilt, Kristen and Christine L. Williams. 2008. “Access Denied.” Men and Masculinities 11(2):219-226.

Simmonds, Felly Nkweto. 1999. “My Body, Myself: How Does a Black Woman Do Sociology?” Pp. 50-63 in Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader, edited by J. Price and M. Shildrick. New York: Routledge.

Stacey, Judith. 1988. “Can There be a Feminist Ethnography?” Women’s Studies International Forum 11(1):21-27.

Valocchi, Stephen. 2005. “Not Yet Queer Enough: The Lessons of Queer Theory for the Sociology of Gender and Sexuality.” Gender & Society 19(6):750-770.

Wacquant, Loic. 2002. “Scrutinizing the Street: Poverty, Morality, and the Pitfalls of Urban Ethnography.” American Journal of Sociology 107(6):1468-1532.

Weiss, Robert. 1994. Learning from Strangers: the Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York: Free Press.

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Suggested Ethnographies

Bank-Muñoz, Carolina. 2008. Transnational Tortillas: Race, Gender, and Shop-Floor Politics in Mexico and the United States. Cornell University Press. 

Bettie, Julie. 2003. Women without class: Girls, Race, and Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Bernstein, Elizabeth. 2007. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Britton, Dana. 2003. At Work in the Iron Cage: The Prison as Gendered Organization. New York: NYU Press.

Cantu, Lionel. 2009. The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men. New York: NYU Press.

Collins, Jane L. and Victoria Mayer. 2010. Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom in the Low-Wage Labor Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Connell, Catherine. 2014. School’s Out: Gay and Lesbian Teachers in the Classroom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Desmond, Matthew. 2007. On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Elliott, Sinikka. 2012. Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers. New York: New York University Press.

Fields, Jessica. 2008. Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press

Ferguson, Anne Arnett. 2001. Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. University of Michigan Press.

González-López, Gloria. 2015. Family Secrets: Stories of Incest and Sexual Violence in Mexico. New York: NYU Press.

Hoang, Kimberly. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

McCorkel, Jill. 2013. Breaking Women: Gender, Race, and the New Politics of Imprisonment. New York: NYU Press.

Kang, Miliann. 2010. The Managed Hand: Race, Gender, and the Body in Beauty Service Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Mojola, Sanyu. 2014. Love, Money, and HIV: Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Moore, Mignon. 2011. Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood among Black Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Pachirat, Timothy. 2013. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Parreñas, Rhacel. 2011. Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Pascoe, CJ. 2011. Dude you’re a fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 

Patillo, Mary. 2013. Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Pugh, Allison. 2009. Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Salinger, Leslie. 2003. Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Stein, Arlene. 2002. The Stranger Next Door:The Story of a Small Community’s Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights. Beacon Press.

Wacquant, Loic. 2004. Body & Soul. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ward, Jane. 2008. Respectably Queer. Vanderbilt University Press.

Williams, Christine. 2006. Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Older works

Bourgois, Phillippe. 1996. In Search of Respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Foner, Nancy. 1994. The Caregiving Dilemma (U. California Press, 1994).

Gibson, James William. 1994. Warrior Dreams. Hill and Wang.

Ginsburg, Faye. 1989. Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community. University of California Press.

Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift (Avon, 1989); The Managed Heart (U. California Press, 1983); The Time Bind (Metropolitan, 1997).

Kaplan, Elaine Bell. 1997. Not our Kind of Girl: Unraveling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Leidner, Robin. 1993. Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rollins, Judith. 1985. Between Women: Domestics and their Employers Temple Univ. Press.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1993. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stacey, Judy. 1990. Brave New Families. Basic Books.

Thorne, Barrie, 1993. Gender Play. Rutgers University Press.

Willis, Paul. 1977. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. New York: Columbia University Press.